


Enough to Make Better People Give Up

by J (j_writes)



Category: Sports Night
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their silences are a lot more significant than their words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough to Make Better People Give Up

They meet for breakfast whenever Casey’s in town.

It happens usually once or twice a month, and it could be that there’s a logical reason for him to be there each time, but Dan’s pretty sure that there isn’t always. It’s a big sports city, but not that big. Not so big that one of the junior reporters couldn’t cover most of the stories.

Every so often, Dan will come home to find a message on the machine. Not a “hey, I’m in town, let’s do food” message, but just a date and a time. That’s enough.

They meet at a tiny roadside place, about twenty minutes outside the city, and all the waitresses know their names. Not from tv, but because they’re regulars.

Dana doesn’t know, because Casey’s never told her. As for Dan, he has no one to say goodbye to in the mornings but the cats, and they don’t care. So they meet, and flirt harmlessly with the waitresses, and talk about safe things like waffles and baseball and Charlie while they wait for their food to arrive.

Their silences are a lot more significant than their words.

Their past is in those silences, all the topics that are on the list of Things Dan And Casey Don’t Talk About. They never had to decide what was on that list, because they both knew in the beginning, right from the first morning when Dan answered the phone to find Casey on the other end, saying that he was in town, and did Dan want to do breakfast?

Across the street from the restaurant is the hotel where Casey always stays. That first morning, it had been a Howard Johnsons, and shortly after that it had become a Holiday Inn. These days, it’s gone independent, and is just called the Town Line Hotel.

It doesn’t matter what it’s called, because the beds are the same, with the same creaky springs and ugly bedspreads, and when they turn on the water in the shower, it still smells like the water in every other hotel in the country.

There had been some excuse that first morning, some reason for Dan to follow Casey upstairs, but he can’t for the life of him remember what it was anymore. These days there are no excuses, just a vague sense of anticipation as they bicker over who’s paying for what and how much of a tip to leave, and then the brief walk across the street that always ends with Casey sliding the keycard into the lock with trembling fingers.

By the time the door clicks shut behind them their hands are already on each other, making up for a month’s worth of missed touch. Sometimes it’s slow and careful, gentle fingers making their way through tangled hair and across damp skin. More often it’s rough and desperate, strong hands bracing against the wall as mouths collide in something that is more than passion, something that almost borders on anger.

Sometimes they make it to the bed, most times they don’t. More often than not one or both of them returns home with rug burned knees, bruised wrists. Dan never minds, not really, but he knows it bothers Casey, so sometimes he remembers to be careful. Not always, though, and occasionally he’ll catch Casey running his fingers along the outline of a bruise, and he’ll know that he’s already trying to come up with another lie to tell Dana.

He never tells him that he doesn’t really have to bother.

She’s never been the fool that Casey likes to think she is.

It’s always Dan who leaves, because it’s not his room, and because if he left it up to Casey, they would probably stay there for the rest of their natural lives. Casey has never been good at goodbyes, or decisions, and Dan has learned to accept that about him. Sometimes neither is necessary and it’s easier just to live in the shadowy space between two extremes.

He doesn’t know if it’s strength or weakness that makes him leave, and maybe it’s neither, or a little of both. All he knows is that each time he closes the door behind him he feels his heart break a little more.

By the time night falls, Casey is in New York with Dana, and Dan is at home with the cats, and neither of them is whole.

They have both learned to live with being incomplete.


End file.
